Seeking That Which Is Lost
by The Sarcastic Raccoon
Summary: As far as Pyrrah Ananka was concerned, Egypt was a place left firmly in her past. The Carnahan-O'Connell family seem to have other plans, however— ones involving catastrophes of apocalyptic proportions. So what's trickier? Halting the world's end, being unexpectedly reunited with a familiar Medjai... or introducing him to your five-year-old son? (Set during TMR) Ardeth/OC
1. Chapter 1

**SEEKING THAT WHICH IS LOST**

**CHAPTER 1**

_**London. 1933.**_

The village of Walthamstow, nestled snugly in its patch of North-East London, had gone to bed for the evening.

The Crooked Billet pub was switching off the last of its lights on this frostbitten night, and the tramway offices had long since closed. The terrace houses on every street from Valentin Road to Chapel End were locked up tight, every family battening down the hatches to stave off the dark world beyond their front doors.

The red brick homes adjacent to the Walthamstow train tracks were rattled, as usual, by a steam train thundering through the borough. The residents of these houses were used to the aggressive presence of the freight carrier, which passed by at ten o'clock if it was on time.

Most of the people who occupied the stretch of terraced flats that snaked alongside the rail lines slept through the noise without trouble.  
>For one little boy, however, the disturbance woke him nightly.<p>

Unfortunately for his exhausted mother, it usually took a lengthy bedtime story to get him back to sleep.

"Freddie, you know it's just the train, don't you?"

Tucked warmly in his bed by the window, five-year-old Freddie stared out at the moonlit train tracks. The railroads were empty now and wouldn't see another train until morning, but he watched them with caution.  
>"I had a dream that the roof was falling."<p>

The kettle whistled in the other room, and he heard his mother prepare herself a cup of tea.

"The roof was falling?"

He turned his head as she shuffled back into their shared bedroom, a moving cocoon of woollen pyjamas clutching a steaming little mug.

"Yes," he told her, as she came to sit on the edge of his bed. "It fell down on us and we got trapped."

The woman tutted and stroked her son's cheek reassuringly.

"Oh, poppet, that's not going to happen. You mustn't worry yourself. Try to get back to sleep."

Freddie peered up at her, a twinkle in his big, dark eyes.

"The story, first?"

She sipped her tea.  
>"It's late."<p>

"Please?"

"No."

"Please, Mama?"

The little boy smiled cheekily, knowing that she would give in if he did so. He had recently lost his two front teeth, and his words were often accompanied by a soft whistling.

Pyrrah Ananka glanced at the clock on the wall. She sighed.

"Five minutes. You have school in the morning."

Freddie grinned and sunk further into his bed, making himself comfortable for the storytelling that was to follow.

Perry rubbed her eyes, which were hollow with wear as of late. This had become a part of their nightly routine, and it was not a habit she wanted to get into. It was freezing and she was exhausted and she had a ten hour shift at work the next day; the longer she stayed awake, the more precious minutes of sleep she lost.

But her little boy, snug under his thick feather quilt, came first. Freddie Ananka always came first. He was her little prince, the light of her life. And who could say no to that face?

"Alright. Where were we last time?"

"The fire on the boat!"

Freddie had plump, Cupid lips and warm eyes that seemed too big for his head. She kept the jet curls of his hair cut short— lest the English boys he went to school with tease him relentlessly— but she wished she could let it grow long, to his shoulders. She knew that would suit him.

He didn't look like her much at all, she didn't think, but she wouldn't change that for the world. Her little boy was perfect.

"Yes, the fire on the boat, of course," she whispered, and cleared her throat. "So. The librarian is trapped in her cabin with the bad men, and now the room has caught on fire."

"Didn't the man from the prison come to rescue her?" Freddie asked.

"Right, I forgot he was there," Perry said, thinking she was entirely too tired to be racking her brain like this. "What were we calling him?"

"The scoundrel."

She smiled at the boy.  
>"The scoundrel. How about we give him a name? What about... O'Brian?"<p>

Freddie grinned. Perry put her cup of tea on the bedside cabinet and pulled her feet up onto the bed.

"O'Brian, firing his gun all over the place, grabs the librarian and tries to pull her into the hall. Oh, did I mention the man with the hooked hand?"

The boy's eyes widened.  
>"A hooked hand?"<p>

"Yes, one of them has a hook for a hand! And he has tattoos on his cheeks, like the other bad men."

She swiped her cold fingertips across Freddie's cheeks and he giggled.

"Hook attacks the librarian, so she jams a candle into his eye. He falls back. The room catches fire. The librarian gets away with O'Brian, and they head to the top deck of the ship. Meanwhile, the rest of the boat is waking up to the sound of gunshots."

Pyrrah had started telling this all too familiar story to Freddie a few months ago, in an attempt to get him to go to sleep. The boy was a terrible worrier even at his young age. She usually read to him, but any story would do the trick of putting his mind at ease. It just so happened that this particular tale had become his fast favourite.

"Now, the archaeologist had heard the shouts of his sister, the librarian, and was rushing down the hall to her room," she continued. "But he was very drunk, so he kept running into the walls."

Little Freddie laughed uproariously and slapped a hand across his mouth.  
>"He's so silly!"<p>

"He is. That's why he has an assistant to keep him in line. Did I mention his assistant is very clever and pretty?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Right. Well. They find the librarian's room on fire, and the puzzle box is on the floor!" Perry went on.

"The one that's the key?" Freddie checked.

"That's right. From Hamunaptra, the secret ancient city. Mr. Archaeologist tried to get it from within the flames, but then Hook appears out of nowhere and grabs it first!"

Freddie gasped.

"But Hook's robes have caught on fire, and he panics. He runs straight past them onto the deck, where a gunfight is happening!"

"A gunfight?"

"Yes," Perry tells him, and leans in closer. "Those obnoxious Americans are shooting everything. And horses are running everywhere, and the whole boat is on fire. Do you know what O'Brian does?"

Freddie widened his eyes.

"He picks up the librarian and throws her over the edge of the boat!"

The boy's jaw dropped.  
>"Why?!"<p>

"Because he's a little bit crazy, but also to save her from the fire. He jumps in after her, and the archaeologist and his assistant do the same. Our heroes plunge into the freezing waters of the River Nile and swim to shore, now stranded in the middle of nowhere."

"In the desert?"

"In the desert."

"Wow."

"Yes, wow," Perry laughed, and leaned forward to kiss her son on the forehead. "But it's bedtime, now. I'll tell you some more on the way to school tomorrow."

Satisfied with that promise, Freddie smiled and wrapped his little arms around her neck for a hug.

"Night, Mama."

"Tesbahey ala khear, my son."

She tucked his quilt tighter around him and brushed his hair off of his forehead.

"Do you know how much I love you?" she asked him, quietly.

He smiled and then shook his head.

"Well. I love you more than all of the cities, and all of the seas, and all of the books in the world. I love you more than all of the words in all of the books, in fact! More than the rivers and the mountains and the sun and the moon."

Freddie smiled and his teeth whistled.

"My little Faruq, I love you more than every single star in the sky," Perry told him, and tapped the end of his nose with her fingertip. She got off the bed and picked up her cup of tea. "Now. Get some sleep. And don't worry about bad dreams."


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

"Are you sure you're going to be alright without Alexander? I can take you straight to Mr. Carnahan's house if you'd like..."

Every morning at six o'clock, Pyrrah and Freddie used the Markhouse Street tramline to get further into the city of London.

Freddie was attending the same school as Alexander O'Connell, a privilege that would surely not have been afforded to the younger boy had it not been for the kindness of Jonathan Carnahan.

It was his second week at St. Augustus' School for Boys, a respected educational institution with the hefty tuition fees that most such private schools demanded.  
>Jonathan Carnahan was paying for the boy's education out of the kindness of his own heart; he insisted that he had nothing else to do with the money but feed his gambling habits, and Freddie was of the utmost importance to him.<p>

"I'll be fine, Mum."

The O'Connells had up and left for Egypt the prior week, however, inspired suddenly to excavate a temple in search of some particular lost artifact. This wasn't unordinary for the family, but it meant that Freddie was without company at school until they returned.

"I do worry about you, poppet," Perry sighed, and gave his hand a squeeze. They had just stepped off the tram and were heading along a pavement dusted with frost. "You're a very precious little thing."

"You said you would carry on with the story now, remember?" Freddie reminded her, giving her arm an impatient tug and ignoring her worried mumblings.

He looked adorable in his school uniform, she thought. It was comprised of Alex's hand-me-downs, but he looked like a little gentleman in his miniature blazer and tie.

"Right. Quickly then, because we're nearly there," Perry muttered, and checked the time on her wristwatch. "O'Brian, the librarian, the archaeologist and his assistant all begin a treacherous journey through the Sahara to try and find the lost city of Hamunaptra."

"What happened to the boat?" the boy chirped.

"Oh, the boat went up in flames and sunk. The little Hungarian man— did I mention him? Well, he and the Americans swam to the opposite bank of the Nile, and they had all the horses. But they were on the wrong side! So that gave our heroes an advantage."

It was a bright, crisp morning now, and church bells were ringing through the cloudless sky to signal seven o'clock. Perry and her son could hear the rush of the River Thames on their walk every morning, even though the famous water was out of view. She liked that. Living next to a famous river gave you the chance to mentally pinpoint yourself on the globe, whether it be the Nile in Cairo or the Thames in London; one day she might settle by the Seine, just to add it to her list.

"Unfortunately that dreadful, smelly prison warden had tagged along with our heroes, so they had to put up with him on the journey," she told Freddie, and he snickered. "They travelled across the desert, not knowing that they were being watched the entire time."

"By who?"

"By strange men with tattoos on their faces," she said, waggling her fingers at him.

"Like the baddies on the boat?" he asked.

"Precisely. These men were not actually bad, though. They had a job to do. They were warriors, and for thousands of years it had been their responsibility to keep the lost city of Hamunaptra hidden. Do you know why?"

There was chatter outside of St. Augustus', for hundreds of boys were making their way into the building for their first classes of the day. Some of the mothers of the students, gathered to chat across the street from the grounds, stopped speaking when Perry walked by.

"Why?" Freddie pressed.

"Because a creature was kept inside Hamunaptra."

They stopped on the front path and she knelt down to straighten his tie and tighten his shoelaces. The boy was wide-eyed.

"What sort of creature?"

Perry made sure his hair was in place and then calmly looked him in the eye. After a second's pause, she whispered,

"A mummy."

The bell rang out from the school, alarming all of the schoolboys into running for the great stone building.

"Go on, I'll tell you some more later," she told Freddie, quickly snapping out of suspense-mode. She smacked a kiss on his cheek and sent him on his way. "Be a good boy today. Uncle Jonathan will pick you up at three o'clock, alright?"

The boy twisted his little hands around the strap of his satchel as if it were a source of courage, smiled at her and then ran off to join his classmates.

* * *

><p>The Fairweather Fudge Factory employed four hundred women from the Greater London area. For twelve hours each day, working-class ladies between the ages of thirteen and sixty-five prepared the sweet delicacies produced by the company.<p>

Fudge, chocolate, fruit pastels and various other treats were melted and mixed, molded and wrapped and boxed ready for shipping across the United Kingdom.

Pyrrah had worked in the factory for three years, hand-wrapping individual cubes of fudge alongside forty-nine other women.

She wore a white dress and pinafore every day, as the uniform guidelines dictated, and pinned her hair up neatly like all of her coworkers.  
>She hadn't worn her hijab in five years. By her fifth month of pregnancy she had given up such an act of faith, since the reflection of the unmarried mother-to-be in the mirror— still covering her hair to avoid sinning but swollen with childbearing— had become a horribly ironic image.<p>

Today was the same as most days for Perry. The work was meticulous and repetitive, and a pounding headache was brought about by the overwhelming noise of the factory machines.

Jonathan often remarked that she had lost a considerable amount of her hearing ability since she began working at Fairweather's.

"Ugh," moaned Helen Franklin, a small blonde woman who had wrapped fudge to Perry's left for seven months now. "I thought they had some blokes in last month to fix those ruddy machines."

Perry shook her head.  
>"They say that every now and again to keep us hopeful. If the machines aren't broken, they're not going to fix anything."<p>

"I can't stand it no longer," Helen whined. "Me husband says he's getting promoted soon, and soon as that happens I'm a ghost. Squeeze out his idiot kids if I 'ave to, I'm not coming back here!"

"Mind yourself, Helen. If Mr. Brimley hears you, you won't have much of a say in the matter of leaving," Perry said, as quiet as was possible over the mechanical racket.

The blonde woman's shoulders dropped and she carried on working through her fudge-cube mountain.

Personally, Perry thought the job was quite comfortable. It was warm inside the factory, and she was paid eight pounds a day for her work. Fifty-six pounds a week was just enough to keep she and Freddie housed by the railway in Walthamstow, clothed and fed and far from their former London residence within the slums of Bethnal Green.

"Do you have the time?" Perry asked her, after a moment.

Helen checked her wristwatch tiredly.  
>"Three o'clock. Your little lad ought to be getting out of school now, eh?"<p>

Two hours and she'd be off. Tonight she'd be heading to the Carnahan-O'Connell estate to pick up Freddie, who she prayed would survive in Jonathan's care. She had telephoned Mr. Carnahan that morning, but hadn't actually seen him in person for a week or so now. With Evelyn out of the country he could be up to anything, embroiled in all kinds of bother.

"Hmm."

"What does his dad do then, if you don't mind me asking?"

Perry finished twisting the foil ends of a fudge wrapper and blinked.  
>"I beg your pardon?"<p>

"Your husband. I ain't never heard you talk about him," Helen inquired, quite innocently.

Pyrrah straightened her posture and picked a random answer from her mental collection of white lies.

"Well, right now he's back in Egypt. He's a sailor, you see. Works mostly in our cotton exports."

"Oh, a sailor," Helen acknowledged, with some sort of approval. "I get you. Me husband's a docker himself, so he's always telling me 'bout these blokes that come in from Africa and India and places..."

The blonde began chattering away about her husband and his work and the stories he told her of the men he met.  
>Perry drifted in and out of the blabber, her mind wandering to the aching soles of her feet and the never-ending pile of fudge on her worktop.<p>

_Just two hours to go._

A normal day, unraveling as plainly as possible within the most normal of weeks.

But that's usually the way things are going when something drastically out of the ordinary occurs.

"Ms. Ananka?"

Helen abruptly shut up. The four women closest to Perry's workstation glanced over in curiosity.

Perry turned around.

"Mr. Brimley," she addressed their stout supervisor. "How can I help you, Sir?"

Red-faced Mr. Brimley stood with his hands clasped behind his back.  
>"We have received a phone call from a Metropolitan police constable," he informed her, dryly. "He said it is an urgent matter regarding your son."<p>

* * *

><p>Jonathan Carnahan was not having a good day.<p>

It had begun at noon, his bad luck making its presence known when he awoke with a hangover worse than death.

Apparently, amid his liquor-drenched shenanigans the previous evening he had gambled away one thousand pounds.  
>A loss of unfortunate timing, since he was due to repay the last fraction of a sizeable debt with that cash today.<p>

The man he owed the money to was known well for breaking the legs of those poor fellows who didn't pay him back in time, and so Jonathan had spent the morning hiding in various nooks and crannies around the city of London.

Of course, he had an abundance of money to his name with which to pay the man back. But that money was in the bank, and getting to the bank was much easier with your kneecaps still in tact.

During his time in hiding, a drunken man fresh from a seedy pub recognized dear Mr. Carnahan as the scoundrel who had bedded his wife last summer, and proceeded to bloody Jonathan's nose. The drama that ensued almost resulted in an automobile running him over, and this had all happened by two o'clock.

And what's the cure to such a terrible, horrible start to the day?  
>Alcohol.<br>Lots of alcohol.

It solves all the problems that the very same beers, wines and spirits themselves caused... until you're more than a little smashed, flirting with a blonde showgirl named Sheila, and you suddenly remember that you have to pick up Freddie Ananka from school.

Jonathan had hastily driven to St. Augustus' to collect Perry's son, and the two of them began the journey back to the O'Connells' house. The booze, the speedometer and the other cars on the road didn't mingle well, however, and when things got overwhelming Jonathan forgot the difference between the brake pedal and the accelerator.

His maroon Duesenberg Model J smashed right into the back of a boat-tail roadster, and he was knocked unconscious as smoke began rising from the car bonnet.

_"Jonathan!"_

Now, he was sitting in the charge room of the Cannon Row Police Station, waiting for his head to stop spinning. The five year-old he was responsible for sat in silent shock in the chair at his side.

Jonathan felt rotten and sick and very sore, and then Perry clip-flopped her way towards them and he realized everything was about to get a hundred times worse.

"What on earth happened?!" she screeched, and rushed to take her son in her arms. "Freddie, my dear, are you okay?"

Jonathan wished somebody— _anybody_— would be as concerned for his well being. He had a broken nose and a concussion, yet people only felt anger towards him. Where was the sympathy?

"I banged my head," Freddie told his mother, who brushed his fringe of curls aside and gasped. There was a large purple bruise swelling up on his forehead. Jonathan shifted in his seat.

"Perry, darling, might I start by letting you know that—"

_"Ebn el sharmoota!"_

He flinched in fright and stopped speaking. She shot him a look so thunderous it might have turned him to stone.

"How could you be so irresponsible?" she hissed, and took Freddie by his hand.

Jonathan placed his palm over his eyes and rubbed them tiredly.  
><em>I'm just having a bad day.<em>

"Come on," Perry sighed, and waited for him to look at her. "Let's take you home."

* * *

><p>People that grew up in affluent families— people like Jonathan and Evelyn Carnahan— never had much of a need to use public transportation, and might easily turn up their noses at such a common-folk way of getting around.<p>

Perhaps the Carnahan siblings weren't quite so snobby as others in their societal class, but Jonathan certainly felt out of place as he rode the tram home.

Freddie fell asleep on Perry's shoulder, who herself was much too annoyed to become the slightest bit drowsy. She stared angrily out of the window and stroked her son's head, but Jonathan wished she would pay some attention to the toothless man he was sat next to. The man—covered in some film of grime from head to toe—was staring at him very closely and intently, to such a degree that Jonathan could feel his musty breath on his neck.

The tram didn't smell nice, none of its passengers looked particularly well to do, and quite frankly he felt unsafe. It was no wonder it only ran to the outskirts of Rick and Evy's neighborhood, leaving them to walk the last mile or so as the sun set.

"You know, you could actually take care of this house while your sister is away," Perry remarked, taking her coat off once they were inside the grand home.

Jonathan collapsed onto the first couch he could reach.

"That's what maids are for, darling," he mumbled into a cushion.

Perry began switching on lamps, of which an abundance were needed to light the labyrinth of rooms. The O'Connell house smelled of peppermint and pipe tobacco, and that other sort of dusty smell that lingers in stately homes passed down through generations of blue bloods.

"Ugh, nothing here has been cleaned in a fortnight, Jonathan. For goodness' sake…"

Perry ran a finger across the top of a cabinet and wrinkled her nose at the grey powder she picked up.

"Oh, give me a break, would you? I've had a bloody awful day," Jonathan moaned, fidgeting and rolling around on the sofa until he found a comfortable lounging position.

Freddie, who had been busy untying his laces by the door, finally kicked off his shoes and made a beeline for the lounge.

"Mr. Carnahan, there is a very simple solution to all of your earthly problems. It involves the polite decline of many a drink," Perry called to him.

"Sweetheart, if it were that easy to cut booze out of my life, I'd—UGH!"

Freddie leapt onto the sofa, ramming his knees straight into Jonathan's abdomen.

"Oh, careful there, chap," he croaked, winded slightly. The boy giggled. "Uncle Jonny's not up for a fight this evening…"

Perry switched on the light in the kitchen. Her mouth fell open.

There was flour everywhere, dirty dishes stacked high on every countertop, the pantry ransacked and various rich foods left out to ruin.

Back in the living room, Freddie near enough shoved a finger up Jonathan's nose. "Your nostrils are red," he said.

Jonathan frowned and sniffed.

"Oh, yes, I was in a bit of a scuffle earlier. Codger left me bleeding," he sighed, and searched his pockets for a handkerchief. Finding one proved quite difficult, however, as Freddie was still kneeling on his chest.

"Did you tell a policeman?" he asked.

Jonathan wiped his nose and scoffed.

"Tosh! Old Jon took care of it himself. Left the bloke black and blue. I was a bare-knuckle boxer when I was younger, you know. Champion."

Perry appeared at their sofa and looked at him in deflated scorn.

"What happened in the kitchen?"

Jonathan paused.

"Oh, right, that," he slowly remembered. "Yes, I had some lady-friends over and they had the bright idea of making pancakes. But in that thin way, like they make them in France, you know? Crêpes, I think they call them."

"It looks like it was hit by a bomb," she said.

"Hmm, yes, I'll have to clean that up in the morning. Evelyn will be home tomorrow afternoon, and—"

Perry's eyes went wide.

"The O'Connells are back _tomorrow_?"

"Yes, Evy telephoned me today from Le Havre. Said something about a bit of a calamity in a temple, they left Egypt a while ago…" Jonathan muttered, not particularly excited by the subject.

Perry looked at the clock on the mantle. It was nearly six o'clock, now, and Jonathan already looked prepared to hit the hay. He'd wake up late tomorrow with a terrible hangover and a thoroughly bruised body, which meant the house would remain in this sorry state for a considerable amount of time.

Evelyn and Rick had been away for a good two weeks. What a depressing sight to return home to.

"Well, in that case I'm going to do a bit of cleaning around the house," she calmly told him, and patted him reassuringly on the arm.

"Oh, don't be tidying up now, Perry. Leave it to me, I'll just get it done in the morning," Jonathan said around a yawn.

"It's not a bother, Mr. Carnahan. You just do me a favour and keep Freddie entertained."

* * *

><p><em>Arabic:<em>

_Ebn el sharmoota – Son of a bitch_


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